Losing an uncle ……. and discovering much in the search

This is the story of my uncle, and a series of questions which almost 70 years after his death remain unanswered.

The unknown women in the window, undated

At which point I fully accept that one person’s family history is another person’s yawn, but there is enough in the search to find answers which will resonate with others, offer routes to find lost relatives and perhaps make broader comments about the last century.

For most of the time I was growing up I only had a vague knowledge of him, and Dad, and our other three uncles never spoke of him.  And even when quizzed would reluctantly let slide just the briefest of answers and quickly changed the subject.

Later one of them provided a family tree with the “missing” uncle, and another spoke of a disastrous marriage and a death which could have been prevented if his landlady had noticed how ill he had become.

So enough to suggest a few mysterious and pointers to find out more.

He was born in 1901 in Alloa in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, and over the next decade the family moved south, finally crossing the border and settling in Gateshead sometime in the 1900s..

And in that the family were typical, having started their migration south from the east Highlands decades earlier.

Dad or an uncle with friends, date unknown

But there the trail begins to turn shadowy.  So, while he appears on both the census returns for 1901 and 1911, he is missing from the 1921 census as well as the 1939 Register.  Nor can I find him as yet on any official form, register, directory or newspaper account, until his death certificate dated 1953 issued in Birmingham.

Added to which that death certificate only makes for more mysteries.  It was registered by a Mr. Walter Francis Pountney, who clearly didn’t know our uncle very well, because the age at death was recorded as “about 52” and occupation as “not known”.

And all this despite the fact that Mr. Pountney owned the property.

To be fair it is unclear whether he was living in the house when uncle died.  In 1939 he was registered as occupying the place, but six years later according to the electoral register the house had been given over to multi occupancy, with fifteen residents one of which was his mother.

So, I am not surprised that our uncle ended up in a local cemetery with what appears the cheapest of burial services and no headstone.

Perhaps the brothers only came to know later, which would fit with the little I can surmise, which is our uncle didn’t want to be found.

His wife is recorded in the Manchester Evening News as petitioning for a divorce in the November of 1945  and the official announcement refers to our uncle’s last known address in Gateshead, by which time I suspect he was faraway.  Now whether Birmingham was already that faraway destination is unknown, although I don’t think it was Manchester.

Unknown family friend, date unknown

She was still living in Gateshead and the divorce petition was administered through the Newcastle division of the High Court.

I have her maiden name which was Smith but as yet no date or place of birth, and no parental name.

Those await the arrival of their marriage certificate, ordered up a fortnight ago from the General Registry Office but as yet with postal delays as they are I am still waiting.

So, the trail has gone cold for the minute, leaving just a few observations, starting with the bizarre one that I know more about Mr. Poutney than I do my uncle.

But then this was still a time when it was possible to disappear and pretty much reinvent oneself.  

Apart from a National Insurance Number, there was little to track or identify him.  The requirement to carry or present a National Identity Card had ceased in 1952, and if he avoided hospitals and doctors, he wouldn’t need an NHS number.  

Likewise, if he was careful about the jobs he did, and how he was paid it is doubtful he would have attracted official attention.

And of course, bank cards, online payments and social media were yet to be dreamed up.

Dad, date unknown

So, I think he could have stayed in the shadows, and finding him once he choose to vanish has been difficult.  I know where he lived in Birmingham at his death, and searching for Mr. Poutney took me to the 1939 Register and the house in Birmingham, along with a reference to the electoral register for 1945 living in a street close by to where my uncle had died.  

And armed with that link it was easy to search the same register for the house where uncle was to die in 1953.

All pretty much now hangs on that marriage certificate but that sits somewhere in a sorting office, and until it drops through the letter box our uncle remains in the shadows.

Location; Gateshead, Birmingham

Pictures; unknown family and friends, circa 1920s-30s, from the collection of the Simpson family